FINALLY MARTIN felt that the various trails of breadcrumbs he had been sniffing out might show him a way forward. He was more confident, and a little more scared.
It was worth Greg not ignoring the facts...
His sense of duty warred with his caution. Until he remembered Mayakovsk's verses:
"...On the first night, they come and pick a flower from our garden. And we say nothing. On the second night, they no longer hide, they trample the flowers, kill our dog, and we say nothing. Until one day, the weakest of them enters our house alone, steals the moon from us, and, knowing our fear, tears the voice from our throat. And because we said nothing, we can no longer say anything..."
Martin knew that he and Greg could lose their lives by doing this, but he would lose his life too, otherwise, if he let it happen...
Undeterred, he didn't want to wait until he got home to find out what was on that flash drive. As soon as he got to his car, he looked for his laptop in the back seat, sat in the driver's seat and turned it on. It seemed to take ages for the system to fully turn on, he was so nervous and anxious.
Once everything was working, he plugged the device into his computer and opened the file folder there. There wasn't much there, just image files of the documents that had been scanned, some photos of the scientists, and a folder titled Reports.
He soon thought:
So this is what he couldn't see...
Martin was very cautious with files, shrewd, and before seeing the contents of what he had received, he copied everything he could to another pendrive, which he always kept as a spare in the car. That way, he could explore everything without fear of losing or damaging any documents.
He opened the folder and saw that there were many text files and even some videos, which surprised him. One of the videos was the first file to be opened.
The video, in color but without sound, showed a room with a table in the center with a chair and a white, blonde woman, apparently American and approximately thirty-five years old, sitting at it. On the table there was only a pen or something similar to a marker. The place appeared to be an interrogation room, with a glass wall and the camera outside it, focused in the direction of the table.
Suddenly, a caption written on paper appeared on the screen, saying "TEST 33," and then disappeared. After this, the woman seemed to be bothered by something, looking around, looking for something. Her discomfort grew, and she seemed to be getting desperate, until she got on her knees, with her hands over her ears, shouting something that he could not hear.
Martin tried to read her lips on the poor-quality video, but it was impossible to be sure. As he struggled to translate her, he thought she was saying something like, "Stop! Please stop! "
The terrifying scene continued for a few minutes, until she stopped screaming and fell to the floor unconscious. The scene ended and everything went black, but soon after, another one began. In it, the same woman was standing, walking around the room in a random and wandering manner. She looked at the floor as she walked, until she hit her head on one of the walls and, without reacting, continued walking and hitting it over and over again.
Then another take began, this time of an Asian man, around thirty years old, who was in the same room. The caption appeared again and read : "TEST 41". The procedure seemed to be the same, the man desperately covered his ears until he could no longer hold back. After that, he fell to the floor, but still awake, crawling to one of the corners of the room and looking around in fear with an expression of pure terror.
Martin was immediately reminded of White House wife Allison Bates, who had had the same reaction to Greg in the video he watched. That was when he realized the real connection between that and his case.
By the way he looked and acted, the Asian man seemed to see people around him, like someone sitting on the sidewalk watching people pass by, but the room was empty, leading Martin to suggest that it was an illusion in the victim's mind.
The fourth scene shown in the video had the caption: "TEST 68." At that moment, Martin was deeply moved. He thought about all the people who were being used in these tests and how inhumane it was. In test 68, the victim was another man, black, probably forty or fifty years old. Like the others, he suffered from the loud noises and screamed desperately. But this time, something was different. Minutes after the procedure, he picked up the pen that was on the table, took off the cap, and holding it like a child, he began to draw on himself, the table, and the floor.
What the hell is this, my God??? — Martin exclaimed inside his car.
The video was almost over, but there was one last scene. The caption read: "TEST 121". A woman, who looked about twenty-five at most, with black hair and Latin features, was sitting at the table this time. She didn't seem to suspect what was coming next, as she remained calm and attentive. Minutes passed and the whole procedure was repeated with her as well, but it seemed to have improved, as she no longer screamed desperately like the others, she just kept looking around, as if she found what she was hearing strange. Her behavior, however, began to change.
At the end of it all, she moved in a somewhat robotic way and didn't show the same attention as before. She picked up the pen that was in front of her, got up from her chair and walked towards the camera, stopping exactly in front of the glass that served as a wall and protection from those watching on the other side. She spent almost a minute looking at the wall, until she took the cap off the pen and began to write on the glass, at first in disjointed lines, but as she continued, the scrawls formed, in a mirrored fashion, the word: "SUCCESS".
At that moment Martin almost jumped into the car. He was stunned by what he had seen.
Was this the Moon project Greg was talking about?
Could this be what the terrorist on Fifth Avenue was using?
He could almost be sure, it was all very similar, and all the more frightening. An experiment with such power, in the wrong hands, was unimaginably threatening.
As soon as the video ended, he opened one of the scanned reports and began reading:
"February 22, 1948, Test #33. Subject, American female, 36 years of age, apparently healthy. Demonstrated strong resistance to insertion, negative reaction to signals. Final condition: partial lobotomy and loss of consciousness. Ability to locomote maintained, but loss of touch. Possible causes: inaccurate signals, long procedure, excessively loud sound, probable incompatibility of victim with system. Result: failure."
All that information was terrifying and inhumane. Martin never imagined that there would be such experiments in the dark corridors of the government.
What kind of people were the rulers who led the people all those years?
He opened the second report and started reading it, but was abruptly interrupted. A shot glanced off his window and went out through the windshield.